Metagenomic shotgun sequencing reveals host species as an important driver of virome composition in mosquitoes

High-throughput nucleic acid sequencing has greatly accelerated the discovery of viruses in the environment. Mosquitoes, because of their public health importance, are among those organisms whose viromes are being intensively characterized. Despite the deluge of sequence information, our understanding of the major drivers influencing the ecology of mosquito viromes remains limited. Using methods to increase the relative proportion of microbial RNA coupled with RNA-seq we characterize RNA viruses and other symbionts of three mosquito species collected along a rural to urban habitat gradient in Thailand. The full factorial study design allows us to explicitly investigate the relative importance of host species and habitat in structuring viral communities. We found that the pattern of virus presence was defined primarily by host species rather than by geographic locations or habitats. Our result suggests that insect-associated viruses display relatively narrow host ranges but are capable of spreading through a mosquito population at the geographical scale of our study. We also detected various single-celled and multicellular microorganisms such as bacteria, alveolates, fungi, and nematodes. Our study emphasizes the importance of including ecological information in viromic studies in order to gain further insights into viral ecology in systems where host specificity is driving both viral ecology and evolution.

Automated summary

High-throughput nucleic acid sequencing has accelerated the discovery of viruses in the environment, particularly among mosquitoes which are important for public health. Study in Thailand shows that virus presence patterns are primarily defined by host species rather than geography or habitat. Various microorganisms were also detected, emphasizing the importance of ecological information in viromic studies.